Volume 10 — THE JACKPOT

BY IRONQUILL

I sauntered down through Europe, I wandered up the Nile, I sought the mausoleums where the mummied Pharaohs lay; I found the sculptured tunnel Where quietly in style Imperial sarcophagi concealed the royal clay. Above the vault was graven deep the motto of the crown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." It's strange what deep impressions Are made by little things. Within the granite tunneling I saw a dingy cleft; It was a cryptic chamber. I drew, and got four kings. But on a brief comparison I laid them down and left, Because upon the granite stood that sentence bold and brown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." I make this observation: A man with such a hand Has psychologic feelings that perhaps he should not feel, But I was somewhat rattled And in a foreign land, And had some dim suspicions, as I had not watched the deal. And there was that inscription, too, in words that seemed to frown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." These letters were not graven In Anglo-Saxon tongue; Perhaps if you had seen them you had idly passed them by. I studied erudition When I was somewhat young; I recognized the language when it struck my classic eye; I saw a maxim suitable for monarch or for clown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." Detesting metaphysics, I can not help but put A philosophic moral where I think it ought to hang; I've seen a "boom" for office Grow feeble at the root, Then change into a boomlet—then to a boomerang. In caucus or convention, in village or in town: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."